For lecture yesterday we had a guest speaker. He's an RN at the only burn center in the state of Arkansas. I had been looking forward to hearing all of the information because my husband was badly burned and spent a month in a burn unit when he was a child. The pictures we saw yesterday were gruesome and horrifying. It was good to learn about the common causes of burns and ways to prevent them. It was great to learn a little bit of first aid regarding burns. It was heartwarming to hear successful recovery stories and see photos of a burn patient after months and years of healing. It really amazes me what those health care professionals are able to do to save lives, improve appearance, and restore function to those burn patients.
My friends know I'm really interested in both critical care and surgery. Well, I learned yesterday that the burn center would give me plenty of experience in both of those areas! Plus, I'm all about safety and a small nurse-patient ratio... at the burn center there is often one (or even two!) nurse for each critical patient. It's no cakewalk... there was a photo of a patient with so many machines, bags of fluid, dialysis, ventilator, etc., that you couldn't even see the patient in the bed. I'm very curious about this area of nursing. So I'm going to shadow a burn center nurse for a couple hours and see first hand just what they do.
I'm not sure I could handle working with burn victims except that someone took good care of my husband when he was a 2 year old burn patient. I am grateful to those individuals, and it would be an honor for me to do the same for someone else.
"Burned" Out!
Friday, October 17
posted by Autumn at 5:23 PM
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5 comments:
a friend of mine from elem through high school was a burn unit nurse - first here and then in Alabama (after her husband got transferred). I admire you for considering it!
I loved working in the burn ICU. Some of the best nurses work there! I think you will enjoy it. Sp
I read the book Refined By Fire this past summer... it's about a Christian man that was in the Pentagon on 9/11 and was severely burned. The book talked of his experience in the burn unit and his recovery. It was very moving. He set up an organization for burn victims and there families. Here's the website: http://www.facethefire.org/
Good luck!
That is touching in a very real way, Autumn. Made me teary. I think of Andy's burns every so often -- especially when cooking on the stove. Praise God for His protection of Andy's little body back then and for the uniqueness of it now. :-)
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